Cassandra Jardine and Richard Savill reveal how a small market
town quietly came to represent us all.

If Wootton Bassett had had the money to build a proposed by-pass, it would never have found a place in history. Lack of funds to divert traffic has had the unforeseen consequence of turning this otherwise obscure market town in Wiltshire into a national focus for honouring those who have given their lives in the service of their country. Twice this week – on Monday, and again on Friday – townspeople, visitors and the world's media will have gathered to watch a funeral cortege as it passes down the High Street.

The ceremony that has grown up in Wootton Bassett is as simple and moving as the coffins themselves, wrapped only in the Union flag. As the hearses approach, the tenor bell of St Bartholomew's Church begins to toll. Business stops while shoppers and shopkeepers join the crowds lining the pavement. When the cortege reaches the war memorial, the president of the British Legion says a single word – "Up" – to mark the moment when ex- and serving members of the forces should begin their salute. "Down," he says 60 seconds later, as the hearses move on.

"It is a most strange feeling," says Sally Hardy, manager of the Sue Ryder charity shop. "When the bell from the parish church starts to toll and the police stop the traffic, there is just silence. It is a very unusual thing to find in a town. Just about everybody and anybody comes out. It makes me feel there but for the grace of God go my son and daughter."

Dennis Smith, 73, an assistant at butchers K & E J Crump & Sons and a former corporal in the 5th Royal Tank Regiment, also stops serving when the coffins pass. "We all stand outside the shop and take our hats off. They come out of the pubs and stand in silence. It is a very patriotic scene. Everybody shows their appreciation of what the soldiers are doing."

In the last two years, Wootton Bassett has become a very British version of Arlington, the US cemetery where respect is paid to the fallen. No fuss. No flowers or razzmatazz. No tired old formulae of condolence dished out by the PM before the argy-bargy of Prime Minister's Questions begins. Just thousands of people, young and old, standing with lowered eyes and lumps in their throats at the thought of yet more young lives ended in a distant land.

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"Sometimes, people have waited three hours to pay their respects," says Mayor Steve Bucknell. "These poor guys have no more time to give, so the least we can do is give our time."

On Monday, crowds waited in the rain to honour Lt Col Rupert Thorneloe, 39, and Trooper Joshua Hammond, 19. On Friday, the deaths of 18-year-old Private Robert Laws (2nd Battalion of the Mercian Regiment), and Lance Corporal David "Duke" Dennis, 29 (Light Dragoons), will be marked in this simple and dignified fashion. Alongside them will be the body of a Welsh Guardsman who was killed in an explosion on Sunday and, probably, the Royal Engineer who died in a helicopter crash on Monday.

Daniel Wignall, 15, who is doing work experience with a dentist, was among those present on Monday. "I will probably remember it for the rest of my life," he says. His friend William Dixon, also 15 and doing work experience in a music shop, adds: "When the body of the trooper went past yesterday I thought to myself that he is only four years older than me. It seems so young to die."

There's a timelessness to the proceedings which belies their brief history. Until April 2007, the bodies of the fallen were repatriated to RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, to be taken from there to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford where they are examined by a coroner before being released to the families. When renovations began at Brize Norton, RAF Lyneham took over the melancholy role. From Brize Norton the route does not pass through a town centre, but five miles east of Lyneham, on its way to the M4, the B3102 passes through Wootton Bassett.

Lining the High Street began as an accident. "The first cortege coincided with the monthly meeting of the Royal British Legion," says Maurice Baker, president of the local branch. "The mayor and a few of us stopped what we were doing to pay our respects. One of the Legion said we must do this every time and, bit by bit, others joined in." There have been more than 70 repatriation ceremonies and the numbers marking the bodies returning home have swollen. In June 2008. when Corporal Sarah Bryant was among the dead, more than 5,000 paid their respects.

British Legionnaires from far afield are joined by wounded and invalided Service people who wish to pay tribute to those yet more unlucky than themselves. On the pavement, they stand shoulder to shoulder with relatives of soldiers who have made the same sad final journey, and those whose loved ones are still serving. "They tell us that seeing our respect gives a tremendous boost to the troops serving in Afghanistan," says Baker. "They know we are thinking of them."

General Sir Richard Dannatt, the head of the Army who was present on Monday, was "absolutely humbled" by the sight of the silent crowd and the police who gave up their spare time to keep order. "Some people say it is a pointless war," says Allison Bucknell, a Conservative councillor. "But this is about respect for people who have lost their lives."

Many who cannot be there send messages. "Please tell the people of Wootton Bassett," reads one sent this week by a man from Cheshire, "that each one who stands to honour the fallen has a thousand more of us standing unseen at their shoulder."

Sanjay Soni, 42, the Kenyan-born postmaster, who came to Britain 23 years ago, says: "As a community it pulls us all together. Every time I step out to pay my respect I feel very emotional."

In the course of the two years since the first few bowed their heads, the silent show of respect has spread. Many now wait at the gates outside RAF Lyneham, or near the police station at Gable Cross where the Wiltshire force hands over to Thames Valley. On motorway footbridges and in lay-bys along the route, people wait to mark the passing of the cortege. "Thank You Wootton Bassett", say 14,518 people who have joined a Facebook group to show their gratitude, among them many bereaved families.

Yet the tradition might never have started had it not been for a 14-year-old girl. A decade ago, when Army cadet Jay Cunningham had to lay her Armistice Day wreath at a papier-mâché cenotaph in Wootton Bassett, she complained. "She thought that wasn't good enough," says Mayor Bucknell, "so we held a competition, raised £30,000, and in 2002 built a permanent war memorial."

The bronze memorial shows the world held in four hands. With its universal message, it has provided a focus, a stopping point, without which the moment's silence might never have evolved. In recognition of the comfort it has brought to so many, an ex-serviceman from Newcastle has started a petition to rename the route through Wootton Bassett "Highway of Heroes", following a Canadian example. There is talk, too, of the town being awarded a George Cross, like the one given to Malta for bravery during the Second World War. "We don't want it," says the Mayor. "We don't do what we do for the glory of it, and we don't want our High Street renamed."

Nor is there enthusiasm for attempts to formalise and militarise this simple, spontaneous show of respect. Berets but no medals is the rule, but the street has become dotted with regimental standards. "Unfortunately, we now get 12 to 18 of them," says Maurice Baker. "We can't stop people bringing them, but the townspeople don't want it. On Monday there was a band and music, too. We want to keep this as it has been for the last two years. It's about individuals paying homage to the fallen."

While the locals battle to keep the original spirit unsullied, this newest of British traditions is already in danger. At the end of 2012, RAF Lyneham is due to close, whereupon repatriations should revert to Brize Norton.

"We shall be very sad when we can't any longer give our moral support to the lads," says Baker. Should that happen, another town may have to take over Wootton Bassett's dignified way of honouring in the dead. But maybe, by then, these sad repatriations will have ceased.